Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" I love the theater as much as music, and the whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh, making them cry - just making them feel - is paramount to me. "
Stephen Sondheim
Laugh
Love
Me
Related Quotes:
" Math and music are intimately related. Not necessarily on a conscious level, but sure. "
Stephen Sondheim
Sure
Conscious
Level
" Making lyrics feel natural, sit on music in such a way that you don't feel the effort of the author, so that they shine and bubble and rise and fall, is very, very hard to do. Whereas you can sit at the piano and just play and feel you're making art. "
Stephen Sondheim
Art
You
Music
" Musicals are, by nature, theatrical, meaning poetic, meaning having to move the audience's imagination and create a suspension of disbelief, by which I mean there's no fourth wall. "
Stephen Sondheim
Create
Imagination
Meaning
" Musical comedies aren't written, they are rewritten. "
Stephen Sondheim
Rewritten
Written
Musical
" I have, by nature, an analytical mind. "
Stephen Sondheim
Mind
Nature
Analytical
" All the best performers bring to their role something more, something different than what the author put on paper. That's what makes theatre live. That's why it persists. "
Stephen Sondheim
Live
More
Theatre
" Nice is different than good. "
Stephen Sondheim
Than
Different
Good
" By the time I was 22, I was a professional. A young and flawed professional, but not an amateur. "
Stephen Sondheim
Professional
Young
Time
" I was raised to be charming, not sincere. "
Stephen Sondheim
I Was Raised
Raised
Sincere
" The more restrictions you have, the easier anything is to write. "
Stephen Sondheim
More
Write
Restrictions
" The fact is popular art dates. It grows quaint. How many people feel strongly about Gilbert and Sullivan today compared to those who felt strongly in 1890? "
Stephen Sondheim
Who
Art
Fact
" I really don't want to write a score until the whole show is cast and staged. "
Stephen Sondheim
Until
Cast
Score
" Everyone I used to play with has either given up or is dead. "
Stephen Sondheim
Dead
Everyone
Up
" You can't have personal investors anymore because it's too expensive, so you have to have corporate investment or a lot of rich people. "
Stephen Sondheim
People
Investment
You
" Everybody faces a blank piece of paper, no matter what they've written or painted or composed before. I can't imagine approaching every single new project with-without doubt. "
Stephen Sondheim
Project
New
Matter
" There's something inimical about the camera and song. "
Stephen Sondheim
Song
About
Camera
" I'm always conscious of what I'm writing, conscious of what the actor may ask me. I have a defense for nearly every line in the song. "
Stephen Sondheim
Actor
Line
Me
" Gotta watch out for directors. "
Stephen Sondheim
Out
Directors
Watch
" Every writer I've ever spoken to feels fraudulent in some way or other. "
Stephen Sondheim
Some
Way
Feels
" I certainly wanted my name in lights. I wanted my name on a marquee. I wanted recognition on Broadway. "
Stephen Sondheim
Recognition
Broadway
Lights
" One difference between poetry and lyrics is that lyrics sort of fade into the background. They fade on the page and live on the stage when set to music. "
Stephen Sondheim
Difference
Poetry
Page
" My mother wanted me off her hands. She was a working woman. She designed clothes, and she was a celebrity collector. It's my mother's ambition to be a celebrity. "
Stephen Sondheim
Woman
Ambition
Clothes
" I'm interested in the theater because I'm interested in communication with audiences. Otherwise I would be in concert music. "
Stephen Sondheim
Music
Because
Communication
" I firmly believe lyrics have to breathe and give the audience's ear a chance to understand what's going on. Particularly in the theater, where you have costume, story, acting, orchestra. "
Stephen Sondheim
Chance
Story
You
" If you force yourself to write away from the piano, you come up with more inventive things. If you're too good a piano player, as some composers are, the music may become flavorless and glib. And if you're not a very good pianist, you're limited to the same patterns. "
Stephen Sondheim
Music
Good
You
" I was essentially trained by Oscar Hammerstein to think of songs as one-act plays, to move a song from point A to point B dramatically. "
Stephen Sondheim
Point
Move
Think
" Generally, the best recording is the original cast, because that's the way the piece grew: integrally, with them. "
Stephen Sondheim
Way
Original
Best
" Lyrics have to be underwritten. That's why poets generally make poor lyric writers because the language is too rich. You get drowned in it. "
Stephen Sondheim
Because
You
Why
" Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos. "
Stephen Sondheim
Art
Out
Order
" If people have split views about your work, I think it's flattering. I'd rather have them feel something about it than dismiss it. "
Stephen Sondheim
Views
Your
Work